


Between the City and the Bog

by the_names_of_those_who_love_the_lord



Category: City of Bohane - Kevin Barry
Genre: Character Death Fix, M/M, References to Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-06-14 16:12:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15392508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_names_of_those_who_love_the_lord/pseuds/the_names_of_those_who_love_the_lord
Summary: Fucker Burke is lost - on the bog and in general. The Heron O'Toole is tired of waiting for excitement to reach the Rez. Hartnett wants to expand his operations, and doesn't care who dies. Y'sketchin' the coming crisis?





	Between the City and the Bog

Check Fucker Burke: lost out on the Big Nothin', cursing his way across a bog. A city slicker, Fucker was; the scion of generations of Back Tracers, used to the rain-slicked wynds of Bohane. Out on the Nothin', he was a danger to himself. He was terrified of slipping into a boghole, but he did not know in the first place how to tell a hole apart from solid ground. So, he pecked across the bog, trembling, with his breakfast simmering in his stomach, expecting every step to sink.

Setting off that morning, on a dirty mission for Logan Hartnett, he had worn:

blood-scarlet hiphuggers clasped to said hips with a faux-gold chain belt, upon which hung his dirk holster

steel-tipped mid-heel calfskins gleaming with buckles

a tie-dyed t-shirt swirled with indigo and viridian, stolen from Wolfie Stanners

and a leather jacket that did not close, stopped at his waist, and from which useless straps dangled.

Now, drenched with the continual Nothin' drizzle and stained with bog mud up to his knees, he wore the same outfit, but it was so torn and dirty that it looked as though he had dredged it out of the bog as he walked across it. The t-shirt - which Wolfie had gone to great trouble and expense to dye, indigo being rare in Bohane - was ruined.

This, added to the shame of incompetency, anger at Hartnett, and a fear that grew with the gradual dimming of the light, had Fucker in a foul mood. He gave vent to his hatred of bogs, mud, and the world in general as he stomped across the soft earth. Heed the gentle suck of the bog as he dragged each sodden boot from its grip. Nearby, an unseen curlew sang its loneliness to the sky, until Fucker came too close to it and it burst from the reeds with a thunderclap of panicked wings.

He stopped and looked around, searching for a landmark. The bog mocked him with its flat sameness, the repetition of thistle and heather until the horizon. A ball-freezing gust of wind rattled the grasses, and Fucker shivered in his worthless jacket. The night would fall soon. It would be a moonless night. Terror made all his limbs feel jellyish.

"Y'alright, pal?"

The lone voice cut through the thin Nothin' air. Fucker craned his head around, looking for its source, hoping he hadn't imagined it. Far off, almost invisible, stood a person. Fucker waved at them and yelled, "I'm after gettin' myself lost!"

The figure gave a cackle and began to grow in stature as it made its way across to him. As it approached, it turned into a boy with a stiff mass of curls standing up from his scalp and a distinct, lolloping stride. His outfit was pure Pavee, all sheepskin and oilcloth, and Fucker's relief soured to doubt. He had been raised a good Back Trace boy, albeit with some murkiness on his father's side, and the only wisdom the Back Trace could give was to never trust the reservation.

"The good news," the boy said, pulling up in front of him, "is that you've somehow managed to work yourself to the edge of the bog. Bad news, though, is that it's a day's journey back to the city."

"How do you know I'm from the city?" Fucker growled.

The Pavee boy flicked his eyes at his filthy clothes and smirked. "Fair few country boys do be wearin' that getup."

Fucker grunted and looked away to hide the flush of embarrassment. "If you point me the way to the road back, I'll get out of your hair."

"The road back? You fool, there is no road. What, you want to go back over the bog? In the dark? With the sinkholes full of kelpies and the wild dogs pantin' for the ateing on ya?" The boy shook his head. "Come back with me. The ma won't mind a guest for the night. You can go in the morning, soon as the day breaks."

Fucker shook his head. "Ain't lookin' to impose, rez-bucko."

The Pavee boy crushed his strong black brows together. "Y'wouldn't be imposin', Bohaner. Fact is, you'd be doin' a disservice by refusing the offer, like. I'd be kilt and it were known a let I poor omadhaun drown on the bog."

Fucker glanced over the vast expanse of the country they were in. He could hear the hungry water burbling beneath their feet, and knew that the dirt-dark night would be a sure guarantee of his slipping through the bog to sate it. And who would feed Angelina, his gore-jawed Alsatian, if he were to drown? Wolfie? Hartnett?

"Alright, so," he said, bitter about it.

The Pavee boy grinned all the wider - there seemed to be no end to his too-big teeth - and directed Fucker to walk on with a jerk of his head. "You got a name, Bohaner?"

"Fucker, of the Back Trace Burkes."

The Pavee's forehead wrinkled - curse-names were not common outside of Bohane - but he did not pass comment. "The Heron O'Toole, Fucker, and pleased t' meet. But you might want a nickname for meetin' me ma."

 The men of the rez camp fell silent as Fucker followed the Heron through them, only to let snickers loose as soon as he'd passed by. Fucker gritted his teeth and tried not to let the indignity of it show on his face. Children bumbled past him, oblivious, although one scrubby gossoon did glance back over his shoulder and give a frank shout of laughter at the state of his clothes. 

Fucker was not used to being disrespected, and the feeling stung him. It's only for one night, he told himself. Say nothing to no-one, eat what you're offered, and scut out of it at first light. Tell nobody in Bohane. That was how he would play it. 

He remembered that his errand for Hartnett - the acquisition of bushweed from a fermeoir probably five miles north from the rez - had not been fulfilled, and dread took over. How could he get back to the Long Fella empty-handed? Would Hartnett send out a search party? Would he think he had stolen it? Nausea made his stomach curdle.

The Heron looked at him and said, "You're after goin' all pale on me. Did you never see a camp before?"

"It's not that what's upsettin' me," Fucker replied. "I'm in some serious trouble, like."

The Heron's eyes lost none of their mocking humour. "Oh, are you?"

"I've got a sense that I'm in the shit wi' somebody," Fucker told him. "Or I'm gonna be."

The Heron pressed on. "What kinda shit?"

"The kind where I might be headed to me manufacturer soon 'nough, y'sketchin'?"

The Heron showed no outward sign of alarm at this, but a tension appeared in the lines of his hands. "You playin', Bohaner?"

"Wouldn't play ya like that, boy."

The Heron shook his head. "Folly me over here, out o' the way of the childers." He led Fucker to a battered caravan that looked to have been salvaged from the lost time. Two chairs stood in its shade, out of sight of the rest of the camp. The Heron collapsed his long frame into one and indicated for Fucker to do likewise.

"So," the Heron said, leaning back in his chair, "tell me 'bout this fuckin' pickle of yours, Fucker."

Fucker folded his hands between his knees. "Y'ever heard of the Hartnett Fancy?"

The Heron lolled his head. "Heard tell of them, aye."

"I runs with that crowd, an' I do grunt jobs for Hartnett hisself." Fucker paused to gauge the Heron's reaction, but there was none. "Hartnett sent me out today to get bushweed, and I....haven't gotten it. If he even suspects I nicked it, I mi' 'swell stow myself in the bog. Be less painful."

The Heron was silent for a small while, his huge speckled eyes at the side of his head and the pale tip of his tongue at his lips. Then, just as Fucker despaired, he roused himself and said, "Where's the bushweed at?"

"Five mile north. Fermeoir name of McKeown has it."

"Wouldn't do ya no good to get it now." The Heron indicated the rez with a wave of his hand. "We don't give no quarter to Bohane quarrels, y'heed? We too few to get drawn into fights 'bout who owns what. If all our menfolk get shkelped, who's gonna help the lackeens breed more of us? I can't let ya back into camp if you're carryin' the albino's herb."

Fucker nodded. He could already feel Hartnett's dirk in his gut.

"But," and here the Heron raised a cautionary finger, "I can squire you out up there tomorrow, an' send you on your way then t' Bohane. All's not fucked yet, boy."

Fucker weighed the plan in his head. He decided it was the best he had, and so found himself thanking a Pavee for the first time in his life. 

The Heron shook his head. "Don't talk about it in front of the others, alright? Come meet me ma."

* * *

 

 The Heron's ma was a tiny, broad woman, amber where her son was tawny. Her hair was twisted into a bun so tight it seemed like smooth black clay. She did not speak at first, but nodded at the tiny table set into the wall of the caravan by way of invitation. Fucker slid himself onto the seat; the Heron slotted himself in beside him. 

The woman put three cracked wooden bowls on the table. She turned to the hob and heaved up a huge, steaming pot with a grunt. The Heron rose to help her, and together they airlifted it to the table, which whined beneath its weight. She stuck in a ladle and dolloped a hefty serving of some kind of red stew into each bowl. The Heron went to the breadbin and retrieved an uncut loaf of bread, from which he carved three blocky chunks which, Fucker guessed, were to serve as utensils. The Heron came back to the table and handed out the bread before sitting down, relish plain in his eyes and grin.

"Right," said his mother, as they set to eating. "Maurie, you haven't introduced your guest."

Fucker smirked into his bowl.  _Maurie!_

The Heron appeared lost for a moment. He recovered himself and replied, "Eh, Bohaner what got lost in the bog, Mama."

"An' do they not have names in Bohane, child?"

"Cathal Burke," Fucker supplied. It was true that, once, in Junior Infants perhaps, he had been known as Cathal.

The stew was very hot, like the chili messes they served in Bohane on August Fair.

"So, Cathal," Mrs. O'Toole continued, "was you never out on the bog before?"

"I was, missus," Fucker replied, "but I was with people then, like. Wasn't today."

The woman nodded. "And what are we out tonight for, all by ourselves on that unsteady peat?"

Too late, Fucker realised that he was being interrogated. He swallowed a lump of gristle too soon and bought himself some time by choking on it. The Heron battered his ribs to push it back out of his throat.

"He was gettin' something from someone, Mama," he supplied, while Fucker tried to catch his breath. "A gentleman in the city lookin' for, ah, goatsmilk."

Mrs. O'Toole furrowed up her forehead. "Sure you can get goatsmilk in Bohane easy. Son, I know you know what he came out here for."

"Ma, can we not worry it at the table -"

"We'll worry what I want, Maurice, it's my table." 

Fucker looked down at his stew, sweating from both spices and embarrassment.

A long moment of silence hung between them all, punctuated by Mrs. O'Toole's slow chewing. At length, she swallowed and said, "At one point, them were fine clothes, Mr. Burke."

Not daring to breathe, Fucker nodded.

"I heard it told," the woman continued, "that there is nobody what can be beat for good dressing than the Hartnett's Fancy."

Fucker tensed. Beside him, Heron sighed like a man found guilty.

"I couldn't leave him out there, Ma," he muttered. "No matter who he is."

"I know, Maurie. And I'm not a hard woman. I won't send him back out. He can kip here tonight. But tomorrow, he goes."

The Heron rolled a shifty brown eye at Fucker. "Yes, Ma."

They finished the stew in silence.

* * *

 

The Heron spread a blanket on the floor of the tent he used as a bedroom and threw another blanket on it, and that was Fucker's bed for the night. He offered him a pillow, but Fucker shook his head. He did not sleep with a pillow in Bohane; there were times when he wanted a blanket over him, never mind beneath.

The two boys shucked off their shoes and wriggled into their beds, backs to one another. With a puff of breath, the Heron blew out the skinny flame of the candle they had used to light the way. In the sudden dark, Fucker closed his eyes and pretended to be warm.

A low voice in the dark: "Kam-kesht for ya."

"Huh?"

"Kam-kesht, a quick question."

"Oh. Go ahead."

The Heron's voice then betrayed how young he was, and foolish: "Is it somethin' else bein' in a fancy, or what?"

"Beg your fuckin' pardon there, boy."

"I mean - I mean that it must be exciting." Touch of hurt in that rough-edged voice now. "Not like bein' stuck down here, on the Big fuckin' Nothin' with no-one but fermeoirs and spud-atin' polis boys."

"You got your people, can rely on them, cantcha? You think I gots people?"

"My people be the cage what pens me, sometimes." The Heron turned in his bedding. "An' bein' round your people all the time could kill a man. 'Snot natural for us. Ma says, back before lost time, we actually fucking went places, 'stead of bein' stuck on a rez. Feels like us all's in prison now."

Fucker made a noise of assent.

"So, it must be some life, to be a gangster's man in Bohane. Right?"

"You have it all backward," Fucker growled. "All fuckin' backward, wrong all over."

"How so?"

Fucker found himself at a loss. But he had to explain, now that he'd put his bad feeling out into the open. "Well....it's....it's only excitin' an' stuff if something happens. Like a feud. I was in the feud where Eyes Cusack were hanged off the bridge."

A brief silence. "But it's not like that all the time."

"No." 

Fucker rolled over to face him. The Heron was staring at the sloped canvas ceiling. Fucker could not tell his expression in the dark. 

"You really got no-one?"

"Naw," Fucker replied. "Brought up care of the state. Left that, though, help of a friend. He's what brought me into the Hartnett Fancy. Don't know who my folks were, save me ma. She gone two year now." 

The Heron offered a soft grunt of sympathy. "So what's it really like, if not exciting?" 

Fucker closed his eyes. "Most often, 's boring....hangin' out wi' the boys in the Aliados....runnin' errands for that pissy albino fucker....scared some. Bit o' fear, always."

He had not meant to say that. The Heron picked up on it at once.

"What makes you afeard?"

"I dunno....there's always this sense that your life ain't yours, I s'pose....as if there's always someone measurin' it out, waitin' to cut you off. Who, don't ask me. Maybe Hartnett. Maybe some dirty cunt from the Northside Rises. Or anyone. No-one wi' sense feels safe in Bohane, rezzer."

The Heron would not back off, even after that insult. "You don't wanna go back?"

Fucker huffed. "Where the fuck else can I go? Bohane's where I belong, same's here's where you belong. My name gots currency there, an' nowhere else. Can only be there by now."

Something in that shut the Heron up at last, and the two boys drifted away from one another into sleep.

The next morning, they set off before dawn without breakfast, not wanting a repeat of the meal the night before. They stumbled across tussocky grass and mossed-over rocks for an hour before the sun stretched its pale fingers above them.

They came by the river Bohane, and the Heron demonstrated how he'd gotten his nickname by splashing into the water and darting back out again with a trout hanging from his fist by its tail. He dashed its head off the ground and, taking a pocketknife out of his belt, began to clean it. 

They ate it raw as they walked, in true Bohane fashion and as the fishermen of the Nippon were said to do. By the time they were done, the sun was well up and McKeown's farmhouse was in view.

Fucker left the Heron hidden behind the gate and ran down the path to the door. McKeown answered his knock with a shotgun in hand. When he saw who was there, he lowered it and growled, "Took your fucking time, pup."

He did not invite him in, but went and got the bushweed himself. He shoved at Fucker with the admonition, "Tell that pale bastard I want payment by Friday. Mebbe he should send another runner that'll not get lost."

The Heron's spirits seemed to dampen when he saw the bag. His step slowed and his back slouched as they walked on, and they spent the rest of the day picking across the bog in silence. He ignored Fucker's cursing as the peaty water soaked into his boots and the legs of his pants, destroying them twice.

By four o'clock, Bohane had risen in the distance. By half-four, they were close enough for Fucker to see the way back. The Heron stopped on a brae and said, "Well, this is where I leave you."

"Will you be okay getting back?"

The boy snorted. "Course I will. I know them bogs like I know meself. Question is, Bohaner, will you be anyway alright in there?"

Fucker flinched. "I'll be fine."

"Well," the Heron replied, "I can't help you if you're not. But...." His huge eyes were somewhat kind. "Mind yerself, pal. Keep a bead on that Hartnett gowl. You're not a bad cut o' leather."

Fucker saluted this with a roll of the shoulders and set off at a flat run down the brae.

* * *

 

Things settled back down. Hartnett got his bushweed - "And you are lucky, Mr. Burke, that it weighs as much as I expected it to" - Wolfie Stanners got the money to replace his best shirt, Angelina the unpredictable Alsatian got fed and walked. Bohane swallowed Fucker back into its routine, and it was as if the night at the rez had never happened.

Over the next five months, Fucker became absorbed in a tit-for-tat series of skirmishes between Hartnett's Fancy and the Cusacks, which left him in tatters. By the time August Fair rolled around, he had a scar that traced a path from the tender corner of his right eye to his left cheek. He had also lost one of his little fingers. This gave him a certain status in the Fancy; the unblemished boys nodded at him and left a respectful path for him whenever he passed by. Wolfie had weathered similar perils - and had the shkelp starburst on his stomach to prove it. Together they swaggered through the Back Trace all through that steaming summer, half-rain, half-heat. By the time of August Fair, they were well ready for revelry. Wolfie ached to cement his hold on Jenni Ching with a fairground proposal; Fucker had himself been wondering about finding a tushie, if only for the tail.

Bohane was its usual snarl of excitement on the morning of the fair. Fucker rose late and, having nothing better to do, dressed himself in a net vest and drainpipe trousers, leashed Angelina and sauntered down to watch the fermeoirs drive their animals through the city. The day was already a swelter at nine, and the sweet stink of livestock was strong enough as to have a physical shape. He flopped onto a stoop outside a hoorshop and watched the sweating country boys screaming curses at their cattle and beating them away from the entrances to wynds. 

A tight band of horses came by then. Their hooves made wonderful hollow music on the cobblestones, and something in their enormous eyes moved Fucker. Some of them would be dead by the morrow, sold away to slaughter. The boy who herded them did not scream; he talked to them as though he were having a conversation with them, the reins slack in his hand. He had a quiff of pale fuzzy hair that stood up on his scalp.

Fucker sat up to get a better look at him.

"Those are fierce gentle beasts ya got there, cuz," he called out. 

The Heron glanced up from his work, saw him, and grinned. "You look not so gentle, Bohaner!" he yelled back. "Coulda sworn you had a smoother face when I saw ya last!"

Fucker hopped off the stoop to join him, with Angelina following behind. "There was some trouble. I gave as good as I got. You here for the fair?"

The Heron gestured at his wares. "I gotta sell all these nags afore I can have any fun. Daddy said a tenth of what I get is mine for the day that's in it."

"I might swing by later," Fucker told him. "I'm at that stage of me life where a nag would be handy to have."

"You'd be a welcome customer," the Heron replied. Looking at his eye, Fucker discovered that he had a touch of a turn. The way the Heron's broad, half-mocking smile affected it made him feel like the happiest of all idiots. They stood there, smiling at one another and blocking traffic, until the cowhand behind them roared and Wolfie summoned Fucker from a nearby wynd. They had to part then, leaving Fucker wondering how the feeling of delighted stupidity could be caused by a turn in the eye of a Pavee he didn't even know very well. It was a quare conundrum, and the more he thought about it, the crosser he got.

"What's wrong witcha?" Wolfie asked him. He wore the latest in Bohane summer fashion - ragged cutoffs, girl-short, a canvas cap with a long bill, a sunreddened bare chest, and leather gauntlets to defend against wayward dirks. 

Fucker grunted. "The heat's drivin' me cracked, boy."

Wolfie nodded at his drainpipes: "That'd explain it. Go get changed and meet me at Jenni's caff."

"Why?"

"Boss wants ya."

Fifteen minutes later, now wearing a uniform similar to Wolfie's, complete with lipstick rubbed into his scar to make it look fresh, Fucker strolled into the Ho Pee Ching Oh-Kay Koffee Shoppe, a chain of sweat on the nape of his neck. Nodding once to the tight-lipped waitress, he headed for the stairs and took them two-by-two.

The upstairs salon was as close as an oven. Heavy funereal drapes admitted no breeze, and tiny lamps sputtered in every corner. The heat of the room drew decades of herb-stink out of the sticky carpet. Fucker lost his breath as soon as he closed the door behind him. He gasped and blinked, trying to sort shapes from darkness.

Wolfie's short silhouette hovered at the long couch where Hartnett lay, glowing in the gloom, a pipe hanging from his sensous lip. Wreathed in fragrant smoke, he looked like the absolute expression of a certain poetic mode which Fucker could put no name to. Jenni Ching - angular, child-sized, cold - perched on the arm of the couch and pierced Fucker with those malevolent searchlights of eyes.

"Mr. Burke," Hartnett murmured. "Come here."

Fucker stepped forward, to stand beside Wolfie. Hartnett puffed out a billowing stream of smoke and sat up, saying, "Boys, while I have been indisposed, I have been told of your feats." He reached out a long finger and traced the ridged scarflesh on Wolfie's stomach. Watching this made Fucker want to bolt, but he could not move. When Hartnett grabbed his own affected hand and brought the stump to his lips to kiss it, he closed his eyes so as to not have to see.

"Ye have proven yourselves loyal," Hartnett continued, letting the hand drop. "Loyal past even the protection of the mortal flesh. I cannot let this go unthanked, gentlemen. If ye have not horses, get them today. Wolfie, you will be given the control of S'town. Traders are getting uppity, not paying their dues. And you, Fucker....I am embarking on a most exciting business venture. You will have the Big Nothin', and the rezzes."

"Thank you," Fucker whispered. His throat was crisped with thirst.

The boys left the salon together in silence. Only when they were in the safety of the street did Wolfie spin around and hiss, "What in  _fuck_ was that?"

"Don't know," Fucker replied. Everything in his head had come unmoored and was careening through his brain.

Wolfie shook his head, as though he were experiencing the same sensation. "He has no right to touch us, why did he touch us? Why?"

"He's high," Fucker told him. "That's all. He's been on the herb for two weeks straight. He's mad as a dog offa it. Pay no mind."

"In front of Jenni." Wolfie looked to not be far off from tears. "In front of me fuckin' girl an' all."

"Look, Wolfie -" But he was already gone, striding with murderous purpose into the heaving crowds. 

Fucker turned away and sighed. 

He had been told to buy a nag, and he would do so.

Worrying about Hartnett's ambitions for Pavee country could wait.

* * *

 

It took Fucker the bones of two hours to find the Heron on the fairground. Every time he thought he'd found him, it turned out to be just another scowling horseman in a wifebeater, haggling with punters through his moustache.

Just as he was about to give up - he had glimpsed a handsome bay in the herd of a Galway trader - a voice called him out. He turned his head and saw him standing beside a chili stand, with only one horse left.

Fucker grinned, the earlier humiliation forgotten, and made his way over to him.

"How's she shakin', boy?"

"As well as she ever is," the Heron replied. He cocked his head at the stocky dun cob at his side. "I sold all of 'em save this fella. Not bad, I think. I don't think I'll be able to go to the fair after all, though. I been tryin' to stir up interest in the fat cunt, but the trading is almost done and nobody's even asked the price of him."

"Give him here a second," Fucker said. The Heron put down his two hands as a boost and helped Fucker to rise onto the animal's broad back. It did not flinch at his sudden weight. Encouraged, Fucker ran his hand down its neck and remarked, "Ye've him well kept, so ye do."

The Heron shrugged. "He's a good-lookin' bastard alright."

"Gelding?"

"Aye."

"Mind if I take him for a test run?"

"No, sure. Do as you like." The Heron passed Fucker the rope halter. Fucker touched his heels to the cob's sides and urged him into a trot. It snorted and set off, flicking its ears. Fucker posted as he'd seen cowboys do in the picturehouse, savouring the wave of fairground smells: chili, hot salted grease, and always the faraway brine of the river. The carnies had already set up the rides, and their whirling lights punctured the hazy blue of the seven o'clock sky. Beneath him, the cob, sensing his mood, broke into an easy canter.

Fucker wheeled it around and brought it back to the Heron. 

"I'll take him," he said, digging around in his pocket for his wallet. 

The Heron's face lit up. "You're joking me."

"I said I'd buy a nag off ya, didn't I?" Fucker passed him a wad of notes. "Lemme put him up in the stables down in de Valera Street an' I'll be right back."

The cob tossed its head when Fucker made it pass the shrieking rides, but didn't balk. Once they were clear of the fairground, it settled into a long-strided trot. Fucker idled, the rope reins loose in his hands, and thought about what Hartnett wanted him to do.

His ambition had always been to rise, and now he was rising; out on a finger but in with the 'bino. But the prospect brought him little joy. He recalled the Heron telling him of his people's hatred of Bohane feudery, and something sour bubbled in his gut. It tasted like guilt.

* * *

 

In the encroaching dark, the rides turned into demented lighthouses. The Heron, his face aglow with country innocence, linked Fucker's arm with his own and sailed towards one that hurled its patrons upside down. 

When their arms entwined, Fucker's brain puked some kind of homemade poison into his bloodstream that made him feel very light and racy. Although the night was well on its way to an autumnal, jaw-clicking freeze, everything in him felt oven-warm, right down to his toes. Vibrating, he let the Heron lead him over to the ride - a two-armed affair wherein the people riding on one end were left aloft while the ones on the other end were left off. The sign advertised its formidable speed.

"Are you sure about this, boy?"

"Oh, yeah," the Heron replied. His voice had no tremor in it. Fucker chewed his lip and remained silent as a whey-faced load of passengers was brought back down to earth. One of them, a boy not older than twelve, bent at the waist to vomit the second his feet touched terra firma. 

The Heron and Fucker edged around the puddle of bile and sat in. The ride operator - a true carnival type who did not seem to care if they lived or died, as long as they'd paid - strapped them in and hopped off the platform. The boys were the only ones on that arm of the ride. The Heron began to giggle with anticipation. 

"Are  _you_ sure about this?" he asked.

Fucker let out a shaky breath. "It's too late to not be sure about it."

The Heron grinned and said, "Here, will I hold your hand to make you feel better?" And before Fucker could refuse he had it caught in his own callused brown paw and grasped tight. Fucker gulped and blinked at the long fingers folding between his own, the dry warmth of the Heron's skin on his own.. It was soft between the calluses. The ride creaked as it began its ascent.

Fucker closed his eyes and set his teeth together. The Heron whooped. The contraption picked up speed and seesawed up and down four times, getting more sheer each time, until at last it tossed them upside-down and held them there, with their trainers paddling the sky and the hair hanging from their scalps. Fucker moaned and cracked his eyes open, only to be met with the heartless expanse of the sky. It was so beautiful. He forced himself to keep looking as the arm turned downward and swung them through its arc. The candy-coloured tarps and motley crowds blurred by, and then they were flung back into the air, high enough to see into the Big Nothin'. The Heron said something that was lost in the slipstream. It sounded like, "I can see the rez". Fucker glimpsed the little lean-to in the Back Trace where he lived, or he thought he did. Back down again, their innards lifting. And through it all, the Heron squeezed his hand until his fingers almost broke. He squeezed back. Exhilaration replaced fear.

After six revolutions, the ride slowed to a stop, and the boys found themselves stranded one hundred murderous feet above the ground, surveying Bohane and everything beyond it. Craning his head, Fucker looked down and saw the whole of the fair, the size of a postage stamp, whirling below their dangling feet.

"Well," Fucker breathed, sitting back. "That's something, innit?"

"It is alright," the Heron agreed. The excitement had leached from his tone; he sounded worried, and Fucker glanced at him.

"You scared of heights, fool?"

"Oh, no," the Heron scoffed, but he was scared of something. It showed in his darting eyes and in the tension of his face. He had not let go of Fucker's hand.

"Tell me," Fucker said, "what's wrong with ya?"

The Heron went ruddy in the face. His hand became limp, and Fucker let it slither out of his own. 

"I'm only nervous," the Pavee boy murmurs, looking out at the patchwork carpet of the world below them.

"Nervous of what? They'll let us down soon enough if it's heights you're worried about."

"I amn't afraid of heights," the Heron repeated. He gave a moody kick to the air. "Something else....I'm afraid that I'm after makin' a fool of myself, is all. Or I'm about to."

"Oh." An idea came to Fucker: "What, are you meetin' a girl at the Fair?"

That got him a tight-lipped smile. "In a quare fashion."

"And you're late for the meeting 'cos you're stuck with me a mile up," Fucker continued. He felt pleased with his detective work, until the Heron shook his head.

"No, I'm right on time for the meeting." His leg danced a jig on the air. "But, but I don't think it's gonna go too well."

Fucker thumped back in his seat, which groaned to remind him that he wasn't in any safe position to get cross. "Aw, come out wi' it already! I'm sick of these fuckin' riddles!"

"S'not my fault you're dense, Bohaner," the Heron snarled. "I'm bein' as clear as I can be, 's you what's not getting me!"

They hung there in the angry silence for a minute, simmering in their individual sulks. Fucker looked down and remembered, without wanting to, Hartnett bussing his stump.

As though the thought had been spoken, the Heron spotted it at last. "Sweet Baba Jay, what happened to you?"

"Was a skirmish with a Norrie," Fucker replied. "I won. He lost his life, I only lost a finger. S'not even my shkelpin' hand."

"You killed him?" The Heron leaned away from him and considered him anew. The turn in his eye reminded Fucker of the thereto forgotten feeling of that afternoon, hotter than a chili mess and just as tasty. He swallowed, and became aware of the burnt bareness of his chest. 

"Aye....you scared o' me now, bird-lad?"

The Heron shook his head. "Couldn't be scared of a boy what look like a ganglin' weed. Can only be fond of something so scrawny trying to be tough."

Fucker raised a brow. "You fond o' me?"

"Oh, now you fish for flat'ring talk," the Heron scoffed. But he smiled, and turned his head just so, and a certain species of blush lent fire to his nut-brown face. "Ask you a kam-kesht, Bohaner?"

Fucker shrugged. "I'm not goin' nowhere."

The Heron bowed his head, and twisted his long hands together, and said, "Was wondering if you thought gentle o' rez boys."

"Gentle....? Back Trace don't breed Pavee-lovers."

"Amn't talking 'bout no Back Trace, it's you I'm asking."

"Mayhap," Fucker said, like he was testing water with his toe, "there's only one rez boy you want me to be sweet for."

"No-one spoke of sweet. Only wanted to know o' gentle thoughts."

"Sweet, gentle, it's all the same. Be straight wirrit - is you sweet on me?"

They stared at each other from eye-corners, in deadlock.

"That's two questions unanswered," the Heron said. The nerviness was back on his face. "But permission to ask one more? If I said yes to your own - and don't take that for an actual yes - would you let me down from here alive?"

"Can't answer that," Fucker replied. "Can't scry the future. But I'll answer your first one - don't know any rez boys but one, an' I thought almighty gentle on him these five month gone. Looked at no girl, not even hoors."

The Heron held him in his stag's eyes, full of fear and wonder. "Is that so."

"Yeah."

"Well -" The Heron swallowed hard; Fucker watched the lump of his Adam's apple bob. "Could be I am sweet on you, although maybe that's not what it should be called. Don't know the lingo for when it's a boy 'stead of a girl." He paused. "This might be the part where you reef me."

Fucker patted the ridiculous show-pockets on his cutoffs. "Ain't got a dirk on me."

The look on the Heron's face was not quite relief - there are more ways to kill a lovesick Pavee than by stabbing him - but he looked a touch less staglike. Just then, a breeze blew, a real guster in off the Atlantic, and it shook the ancient metal bones of the ride, betraying its age. Its arms swayed and its bolts shrieked, and the two boys debating love one hundred feet above the ground grabbed one another's hands in fright. The swaying stopped, but the handhold continued.

Fucker's heart danced like a hare in the cage of his ribs, both from sky-height terror and dizzy adoration for the Heron. He glanced at his face and saw the question there -  _will you kiss me -_ and answered it by only leaning towards him, slow despite the sudden impatience. The Heron stayed still until Fucker could see the delicate freckles half-hidden on his cheeks, and then he closed his eyes and drew in and Fucker Burke got his first ever kiss from a rez boy one hundred feet above the ground.

How warm and alive the Heron's mouth. Surprise of the wet on his lower lip, tasting like the sea.

The ride groaned to signal its descent. The boys sprang apart and eyed one another for a moment before exploding into giggles. Fucker felt all the blood in his body rush to his head. Kissing, as it turned out, was just like being flipped upside down at one hundred and twenty-two miles per hour.

At last the ride slowed and swung to a stop. The dispassionate carnie who had strapped them in set them free and helped them off. "Big lads like yourself shouldn't be this jelly-legged," he grunted. They were laughing too hard to reply.

The fair whirled around them. Fucker linked arms with the Heron and plucked a louse out of his hair. He led him over to a chili stand and they burned their mouths on spicy sausage stew. Their spoons often smeared the edges of their mouths with sauce, because they only paid attention to one another. The sight of juices dripping down the Heron's uncomprehending chin set Fucker off again. Laughter and chili combined made their eyes prickle with tears.

When they were done, they linked arms again and meandered around the fair. Fucker wanted to hold hands, but Bohane is not used to new things and two boys marching around August Fair paw-in-paw would kill the old city. It was common, though, for friends to wander linked. Fucker sighed a lovelorn sigh and leaned into the Heron like a horse. The Heron put his lips close to his caulifloured ear and crooned Cant tenderness in a murmurous tone like the river's. Above them loomed the whirligig, spinning its lovers through the air. The boys paused to regard it as it slowed. Fucker recognised two of the riders.

"Look," he said to the Heron, and pointed. "Yonder's Wolfie and his woman." The Heron raised a caterpillarish eyebrow and watched the couple dismount. Wolfie saw Fucker and sauntered over. Jenni Ching followed, stylish and unsmiling.

"Evening, Fucker," Wolfie said, extending his fist for a bump. "Enjoying the Fair? Who's this one?"

"The Heron," Fucker replied, obliging him. "Miss Ching, has Wolfie gotten 'round to making an honest woman of ya?"

With something approaching reluctance, Jenni put out her own fist for him to examine. A genuine silver ring, unadorned but expensive, shone on her finger.

"Congratulations," the Heron muttered to her. The gaiety had drained from him as fast as blood from the slit throat of a lamb. Jenni acknowledged him with the most miserly of nods.

Wolfie wasn't happy either. He ran an eye over the Heron's roughspun Pavee clothes and said - with a certain twist in his lip - "Boy, did you really come all the way out from the rez to the Fair?"

Impassive as his name-bird, the Heron replied, "Had horses to sell, Bohaner."

Wolfie grinned. "Aye, all stolen."

The Heron's eyes hardened. Fucker squeezed his arm and announced, "Right, you'd better be making tracks before your people miss you. Want me to walk you out?"

The Heron didn't move, save his lips. They mouthed, "Fancy scum."

Wolfie darted in viperous fashion, catching the Heron by the shoulders and giving him an almighty headbutt. The Pavee boy roared in pain and sank his teeth into Wolfie's cheek, tearing like a dog. Blood started from the bitemarks and dribbled down Wolfie's chin. Fucker wrapped his arms around the Heron's waist and pulled him off of Wolfie with a grunt. Wolfie let out a gorelusting howl and made to spring after his attacker, but a touch of Jenni Ching's tiny hand stilled him.

The boys stood eyeing one another, panting, as apes in musth would. Wolfie wiped his face with the back of his hand, smearing the rich red blood that pulsed away from the bite. 

"A dirty fight," he muttered.

"You looked for it," the Heron retorted. "A good fight don't start with a man buttin' like an auld goat."

Wolfie made no reply to this; instead, he threw Fucker a withering glare and said, "You run with Pavees now, Burke?" He jerked his head at Jenni Ching; she turned and led him away towards the Tunnel of Love.

Fucker stood watching them in the queue until the Heron tugged his arm - "Thought you was takin' me home, Bohaner." He fell in beside him, and in silence they made their way out of the fairground.

* * *

"When can I see you again?"

Around them the deepening sky, the rushy bog. Behind them, pitiless Bohane. 

Fucker pressed his forehead against the Heron's and closed his eyes. "Don't know. Depends."

"On what?"

"The whims of the Long Fella - how he'll work me these next few weeks. And now Wolfie's seen you...."

The Heron had a doleful face on him. "I shouldn't have risen to him."

"What? Naw, boy. He respects you know. But Jenni Ching is the one to watch. Every day, Hartnett lies on a couch in her herb parlour and smokes out his brains."

"To them, I'm only a horse-boy you met at the fair."

"I hope so."

They crushed in together and kissed each other. The Heron broke away to trace the raw line of Fucker's scar.

"I wanna get one of those someday."

"In a brawl, like how I got it?"

"No, I wanna get it 'cause of defending you," the Heron replied. He drew Fucker in for a final kiss and sprang away up the bog road like a hare.

Fucker watched him go, all his tissues quivering in abject fear and passion.

 


End file.
